


Fear of Falling

by Patchworkdk



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Aziraphale's ever present state of existential crisis, BAMF Aziraphale (Good Omens), I'm on board the Crowley-was-Raphael train even if it isn't directly stated here, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), M/M, compromises between book and show and traditional mythos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-02
Updated: 2019-07-02
Packaged: 2020-06-02 15:40:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19444456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Patchworkdk/pseuds/Patchworkdk
Summary: Aziraphale doesn't listen, and ends up facing down a Prince of Hell alone as a result.





	Fear of Falling

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you very much to my beta, Verre.

**1952**

There had been a folded note in the door of his bookshop that morning: “Whatever you hear, whatever you don’t hear, steer clear of Spitalfields Market until I say otherwise.” Aziraphale recognized the swooping, sigil-like handwriting from a long-ago note that had read simply “holy water.”

Spitalfields Market was in London’s East End. The heavily immigrant population and war material stockpiles in the East End had been favorite targets of the Nazi blitz. While war-time production had shifted to prefabricated homes and the newly-formed welfare-state was making great strides, the neighborhood was still suffering. Rationing hit hardest those who couldn’t afford the black market, to say nothing of the derelict buildings that had not yet been repaired. Spitalfields was the worst of the area, and had been since long before the blitz.

Crowley insisted that humans did more damage to each other than he did. Perhaps that was true.

Aziraphale brewed himself a strong cup of tea and read the note again. The Arrangement was that if both of them showed up at the same place, they would toss a coin for who left. That element of chance – and that from time to time Crowley would lend his powers to the blessing rather than the cursing – was the only reason Aziraphale could square himself to it. He’d had a rather good stretch of luck lately, and all those holy goings-on without a blip of interference were well worth the times when Aziraphale was the one walking away.

The idea of Crowley simply _specifying_ Aziraphale’s non-interference--well, that wasn’t a compromise, it was a surrender.

Aziraphale tossed the note into the fire and changed into something he wouldn’t mind getting dirty. Crowley owed him a coin-toss. There was no two ways about it.

Of course, finding Crowley was another matter. Usually Crowley was the one who did the finding. The Almighty had cursed Crowley to remain forever part serpent as punishment for convincing Eve to eat of the Tree of Knowledge, and over the course of their association Aziraphale had come to realize the yellow eyes and forked tongue weren’t simply cosmetic. With a snake’s six senses at his disposal, Crowley always knew Aziraphale was nearby or in danger long before the angel did.

Aziraphale had made three attempted muggers forget he existed and been cat-called by a score of prostitutes (who had all been overcome with a sudden urge to have a nice lie-down) by the time he’d walked around most of the Spitalfields Market area. Duval Street was thick with old ghosts and old wretchedness, covered over by the reek of current substandard living conditions. But there had been none of the base irritation or petty squabbles Crowley usually created. Neither had the demon appeared to chastise him for showing up despite the note.

That was worrisome. It was _possible_ the human din was simply overloading Crowley’s senses. But probable?

If whatever Crowley was doing was bad enough for him to actively avoid Aziraphale…

Aziraphale turned around for another pass and stopped. It wasn’t much, barely a glimpse, but he’d definitely seen movement in the rubble the next street over. He moved closer, trying to stay somewhat out of line of sight. Angels weren’t usually much for sneaking, more charging in with a flaming sword, but Aziraphale didn’t want to be inconveniently discorporated for walking in on a human crime.

“I’m not for sale, sir, but through that door are plenty just as sweet, I promise.”

It was Crowley’s voice, but with more purr and promise than Aziraphale had ever heard the demon use. (Which was saying something, because Crowley carried on as if being equal parts wonton and flirtatious was just part and parcel of his obligation to Hell.)

Aziraphale slid along what remained of the brick wall. He peeked around the corner.

A human man, roughly fifty, in a poor man’s clothes and a rich man’s shoes, was stepping into the door Crowley was holding open. Either the clothes or shoes were artifice. Aziraphale’s metaphorical money was on the clothes.

Crowley’s wings were out and he wasn’t wearing his dark glasses. His hair was long again, a single side-braid and Flood-era curls.He was dressed in the black clothes he’d worn during the French Revolution. The effect was striking, stunning even. Exceedingly odd, too, because Crowley wouldn’t normally be caught discorporated in anything that wasn’t the fashion of the time.

Even more unusually, the human wasn’t reacting to the wings or serpent eyes at all.

Crowley closed the door. His eyes closed and breathed in slowly. It was like he was… absorbing something? Enjoying the smell? Aziraphale couldn’t be certain.

“Crowley?” He asked, stepping around the wall. “What are you doing?”

“‘Crowley’?” the demon repeated, as if he couldn’t quite believe what he’d heard. He opened his eyes and smiled.

Aziraphale realized he had made a terrible mistake. The face and voice were Crowley’s, but the voracious cruelty in that face and voice was not.

“You’re not.”

“No, I’m not,” the monster wearing his face said. He stepped forward, moving with liquid malice. “Tell me, little bird wandering in where demons fear to tread, did you say ‘Crowley’ because you see an angel but his old name is Unspeakable? Or is it,” the monster snapped its fingers and held its arms out to the side, wings spread dramatically, “black wings and yellow eyes?”

The tea felt like lead in Aziraphale’s stomach. The monster didn’t know what it looked like, and the human hadn’t reacted as if he’d seen a demon. The human had tried to purchase the company of whatever he had seen. The only kind of demon powerful enough for that kind of variable, blind-cast illusion was a Prince of Hell. Brothel meant lust, which meant--Asmodeus.

Princes were second in power only to Satan himself. An archangel would be hard-pressed to win out against a Prince, if he could win at all. Aziraphale was only a principality, and a soft one at that. Crowley... Before the Fall, as a cherub, he would have been nearly equal to a prince. As Crowley, he had no more chance than Aziraphale.

Asmodeus was freshly-fed on the lusts of the humans inside the building. It was probably why he’d left Hell in the first place. Crowley had known, and doubtlessly hidden himself away out of sight, out of mind.

The note had been warning Aziraphale to stay away, so he wouldn’t stumble into a demon who could kill them both at once with a single spell. Aziraphale was entirely--

“Fuck!” Aziraphale said aloud. He unfurled his wings to flee.

Fast, faster than any demon Aziraphale had ever seen before in six thousand plus years, Asmodeus had crossed the courtyard. He sank claws into Aziraphale’s shoulder, and with the other hand he grabbed a handful of primaries and tore, then a handful of secondaries for good measure. Then he let go.

Aziraphale covered the punctured shoulderwith a hand. His feathers were blowing away in the breeze, skidding along the shattered pavement.

“No quick escapes,” Asmodeus chided with Crowley’s voice, “but you’d probably better run for it, sweetling.”

He could play along or die on the spot. Aziraphale ran.

He scrambled under and over the rubble, zig zagging through the bombed out building. He needed time, he needed a plan, he needed a _weapon_ \--

Asmodeus dropped on him from a taller pile of bricking. He raked his claws down Aziraphale’s arm. Absent a flaming sword, Aziraphale opted for an undignified punch to the face. Asmodeus didn’t even blink, which was doubtlessly why he’d made no attempt to block.

Aziraphale went up this time, climbing a partially-destroyed fire escape--

A hand around his ankle and he was pulled into the building. This time it was his leg Asmodeus raked, enough to hurt but not to hobble. Then he threw the angel out the window. The impact couldn’t tear breath from his lungs, but he felt it all the same _._

The game continued through the bombed out block, each catch leaving a new set of gashes, each gash leaving more ichor to mark his path. Aziraphale struck back each time: hands, feet, boxing the Prince’s ears with both wings. He even bit Asmodeus once, for all the good it did him. Desperation constricted his chest. He could pray, but he knew how likely it was that anyone in Heaven was paying attention.

Aziraphale wouldn’t die, he _couldn’t_ die, he didn’t _want to._

Unaccustomed exertion and ichor loss were beginning to toll. He was running slower now, and Asmodeus was so fast already.

Asmodeus caught him again and slammed him against the wall of an apartment complex. No claws this time. The game was over.

“You’re a stubborn little bird, I’ll give you that. Most of your lot just stand and die. But then, most of your lot see me as I am.” Asmodeus smiled up at him, as if he knew some great secret only the two of them were privy to.

“Go-- to Hell.” Perhaps not the most original response, but he wasn’t giving Asmodeus the satisfaction of his discomfort.

“Oh, sweetling, we both are. See, I have this theory that if you torture an angel long enough, those wings will go black as coal. I’ve always wanted to try it, but, well. Paperwork.” Asmodeus looked at him with mischief that almost – _almost_ – made his stolen face look like the real thing. “But you... If you see your Adversary when you look at me, you’re half-way fallen already. I doubt very much that Heaven will come looking for you.”

Asmodeus wasn’t wrong about Heaven’s disinterest in Aziraphale.

There was a rain gutter to his left, clogged with slime and trash.

_Please, dear God, don’t let him do this._

It wasn’t the right blessing and he had no sacred salt. There might not even be water inside. Aziraphale grabbed the metal and pulled it free all the same.

Where the water struck Asmodeus, Crowley’s face bubbled and hissed. Steam rose from the twisted, mangled flesh. Asmodeus dropped him, screaming with Crowley’s voice. The sound was a living nightmare.

Aziraphale closed his eyes, slumping against the wall. It was also salvation.

He heard the snap of fingers and his body went rigid. Aziraphale opened his eyes. Half of Asmodeus was melted to the bone. The other half was a twisted, horned gargoyle. He was still alive. How was he still alive?

_Not enough water, not for a prince, and half-unclean at that._

“This won’t heal, bird,” Asmodeus rasped, limping closer. “Now I’m going to kill you.”

He needed more water. Asmodeus would sense an offensive miracle right away, but something aimed at the street? It was worth the risk. He was going to die anyway.

 _Blow_.

The new hydrants beneath the rebuilt street spouted water. Aziraphale prayed again, rolling the dice or perhaps flipping the coin.

Asmodeus _howled_ , howled and writhed and melted, sulphur and ooze and sickly-sweet decay.

The humans were poking their heads out the window, either from the screaming or a block of hydrants going off in the middle of the night. Aziraphale pulled himself along the apartment building and around the corner. He was so tired, he couldn’t fly, and there were no cabs this time of night. He was still oozing ichor.

Aziraphale had no idea if bleeding out from demonic wounds resulted in discorporation or destruction. He wasn’t particularly eager to find out. But with Asmodeus gone and the possibility of discovery eliminated...

 _Dry_.

The holy water magicked away from his coat. The ichor and rips did not. It didn’t matter. Saving the coat wasn’t the point. He couldn’t be coated with poison.

Aziraphale took four more painful steps around the corner--

“You idiot, I told you to _stay away_.”

Crowley, the real Crowley, sunglasses and slicked hair and teddy boy clothes. The fashion of the time.

 _Thank the Almighty_.

“Get in the car, get in the car, get in the car, will you hurry up, and if anyone asks I tried to kill you.”

The leather seats of the Bentley were better than any throne in Heaven. Aziraphale closed his eyes. The death of a Prince of Hell was bound to attract attention. For once Crowley’s driving was warranted. Aziraphale focused on drawing enough power from Heaven to stop the bleeding.

“You didn’t say, ‘there’s going to be a Prince of Hell dining in the East End, do stay out from underfoot,'” Aziraphale argued sluggishly. “Besides, he disguised himself as you. Not very well, I might add.”

Crowley slammed on the brakes so hard Aziraphale slid forward and slammed into the dash.

“He _what_?”

“Oh, don’t be offended,” Aziraphale said, “as I said, he wasn’t very effective.”

Crowley turned sideways in his seat.

“That’s not the problem, Angel. If a Prince of Hell knows enough to even try to be me to get _you_ to let your guard down, then I am entirely fucked--”

“He didn’t know he looked like you, I doubt it was intentional,” Aziraphale said soothingly. “He had to ask me if I saw you like you were, well, Before, or as you are now. The human nearby saw something else entirely.”

Crowley’s mouth opened, closed and opened again.

“Oh.”

He turned around and started driving again.

“Crowley?”

“It’s-- it’s nothing, then. Just a parlor trick. Probably wasn’t even aimed at you. You know, individually.”

Crowley wasn’t acting as if it was a parlor trick, but he also seemed to be mollified as to Hell’s continued ignorance of their arrangement. Aziraphale leaned back into the seat and focused on knitting his injuries closed. Crowley could do some holy blessings and miracles as part of their arrangement, but an unholy demon healing a holy angel was probably pushing his powers’ flexibility.

Aziraphale didn’t want to know if it wasn’t. There were a lot of questions about Crowley’s _ars magica_ that Aziraphale had put rather a lot of effort into not examining too closely. Heaven created and nurtured, Hell destroyed and corrupted. He was an angel, Crowley was a demon. That was all there was to it.

After Aziraphale’s wounds had all closed save the first punctures, Crowley spoke again.

“So, uh, just out of-- intellectual curiosity. Which was it? Me, Before, or me-- now?”

“You as you are,” Aziraphale answered suspiciously, slitting his eyes open. “Only not as fashionably dressed.”

Crowley wasn’t looking at him, facing toward the driver side door and looking at the road through the sides of his eyes.

“I own almost every book on the occult ever written, I’m going to find out for myself, so you may as well tell me.” Asmodeus had remarked that most angels saw him “as he was.” Now Crowley was making odd inquiries about what Aziraphale had seen.

“Don’t think you want the answer to that, Angel,” Crowley warned.

“I do.”

After a few moments, the demon cleared his throat. “He makes-- made, himself look like whatever-- you like. To look at.”

“Oh, well that’s not so bad,” Aziraphale said with relief, rolling his shoulder as the puncture wounds finally knit shut. “I mean, between you and me and the car, the gold feathers were a little ostentatious, and red hair doesn’t really look that good in white, you’ve said so yourself.”

Crowley was very carefully not moving his face. He was also not looking at Aziraphale when usually it was a constant battle to get him to watch the road, in a carriage or a car. No jokes, no witty remarks, no smiles.

“What you like to look at” didn’t necessarily mean sartorial conventions when discussing a spell cast by the Prince of Lust.

“You can’t possibly be implying--” Aziraphale scoffed.

Still no change in expression, but Crowley’s shoulders tensed. Crowley, as a general rule, did not _do_ tense.

“No.” Aziraphale denied it. “No, that is simply not possible _._ I am an angel.”

“I was there when the nephilim were made, Angel, and so were you. Don’t give me that.”

“By _fallen angels_ ,” Aziraphale protested, uncomfortably aware that Asmodeus had known the parameters of his illusion and had concluded Aziraphale was half-fallen as a result. “ _Your kind_ did that, not _mine._ ”

The familiar panic was bubbling up like it always did whenever he thought, really thought, about the Arrangement and what the consequences could be. Being burned alive in hellfire was one thing, but black eyes and black wings was another entirely. Crowley would be ecstatic, of course. Not for the first time Aziraphale wondered if that possibility wasn’t part of what kept Crowley coming back. If that wasn’t his demonic plan all along, little compromises into bigger compromises. Like boiling a frog alive.

“Can we not do this?” Crowley asked. “It’s fine, Angel, really. It’s fine.” Crowley looked over at him. Even with the sunglasses hiding his ever-expressive eyes, there was a soft set to his mouth and jaw.

It begged the question of what Crowley had seen when he looked at Asmodeus: a horned gargoyle, or Aziraphale?

Black wings, or white?

Aziraphale couldn’t ask. He _couldn’t_ know the answer.

“Pull over,” Aziraphale commanded, his voice strangled.

“Angel,” Crowley said, but the Bentley began to slow.

“We’re far enough away, and you can’t be seen taking me back to the home office after I’ve killed a Prince of Hell,” Aziraphale babbled. Oh, Almighty, he’d killed a Prince of Hell. Gabriel was _never_ going to believe him, he was _going_ to get a demerit for exaggerating his report for this. “I can get there from here, just pull over.”

“That’s not why you want to get out."

“You’re a _demon._ I’m an _angel_.”

“You like me better this way,” Crowley stated evenly.

“We are not having this discussion!” Aziraphale shouted, lightning cracking in his voice.

“All right, all right,” Crowley said. “Just take it easy.” The car stopped. Aziraphale opened the door, pushed his way out, and refused to look back.

~*~


End file.
